


Heatwave

by forever_undecided



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23958493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forever_undecided/pseuds/forever_undecided
Summary: John's entire apartment block is keeping their windows open due to the heatwave. He (unwillingly) jerks off to his neighbours having sex. He is filled with climate anxiety and very obliquely implied sex-negativity.
Relationships: Cornelius Hickey/Lt John Irving
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	Heatwave

**Author's Note:**

> The Hickey/Irving is very, very implied. John is a bit neurotic and mostly an extremely lonely person. Also, pretend that the plague never happened in this universe.

_Edinburgh records the warmest April for the third consecutive year_

_After a green and short winter, the city of Edinburgh is experiencing a sunny and dry springtime …_

The BBC announcer’s voice is faint and mysteriously tinny from John’s place by the window, and since he lives in the side of the block that faces away from the street, he can hear each word of the dire, obvious news that his neighbour is enjoying. He would tell them to use a pair of headphones except that he can’t pinpoint the exact unit the sound is coming from, and also because he knows, from experience, that it's a surefire way to get more noise at more hours of the day.

His eyes feel like they are covered in ground glass, so he shuts them and plays back the last five scenes of the novel he was reading. One of the characters was so awful it gave him indigestion. 

He ate a bad bowl of pasta eight hours ago, and was crunching potato chips until the roof of his mouth felt like sandpaper and he was completely parched. The ceiling lamp throws its heavy amber glow over the kitchen and casts dramatic shadows on the walls. The profile of the refrigerator is an inky doodle against the cabinets on the far side of the room. His head and body form deranged blots on the counter. His cellphone gives off the dark glow of the 35% battery and he thinks he left his charger in his bedroom.

_Time to go to bed, Johnny. We can learn more about the apocalypse tomorrow._

He stands up unsteadily, abandons the chips but carefully places the tumbler into the sink. Then he can’t help but feel himself dragging a body, his body, to a bed that will be far too warm. And likely damp too.

\---

When John opens his eyes in the dark, he’s excited. The nocturnal animal is all bright alertness, with the upper lip pulled back in a Flehmen response. It’s caught a scent of good things to come.

His hands move away from the sides of his body to clutch the sheet above his chest. The air is freer now, maybe it will rain and the heat will break under the water’s blessing. Isn’t that the definition of happiness? Like one who drifted into an uneasy sleep in a low, hot room but resurfaces amidst the rumble of thunder, the smell of ozone, and the sound of millions of raindrops falling to earth.

Hands, other things, touching him. That’s what he wants. And now it’s slipped in and dispelled his happiness like sunlight scorching frost. 

He hears--not rain--muffled moans, a rhythmic squeaking, and finally, a scream directed into a pillow. 

Then there’s some giggling. His right hand is spread out on his belly. His left hand is locking his right hand in place. It would be silly to let this affect him in any way, but he’s not getting any sleep now for sure.

His cellphone has been restored to a healthy, pulsating glow. 5.30am. It’s still early enough to go back to sleep. Which is what he will do. And ignore the queer little pull in his abdomen.

He lies back down, with the sheet pulled up to his chin, and folds his arms over his chest. His fingers fiddle with the collar of his nightshirt. One stimulus is as good as another.

The sound didn’t come from the BBC-listener’s flat. It sounded like it came from the window on the left of his own. Which meant it came from the room, or one of the rooms beyond where his feet lay as his bed was pushed to the right side of his own bedroom.

In that direction lay a blonde lawyer, she was slim and far too high-powered for this humble block of apartments. But maybe that was just her frugality, her intelligence, that made her unwilling to rent at a more fashionable address. He played back her outfit from Christmas Eve last year. Black tights paired with jewelled heels and an expensive-looking dress with asymmetrical draping. Her coat was slung over her shoulder. They had wished each other happy holidays and he had tried not to stare at her. 

She lived alone. So, that must be hell of a date. John winced. He sounded like his dad. He hit himself over the heart the way he used to when he wanted to erase something. He was still hungry, and the air remained hot.

Then it started again. This time with a slow and rusty creaking of springs--which betokened a sagging and well-used mattress. Stained too. The creaking springs quickly warmed themselves up and settled into a good, fast rhythm. On hands and knees. And then his elbows would buckle and sink as they took a crushing weight--

He screwed his eyes shut and saw a million lime-green pinwheels in the darkness. He would focus on the spinning of pinwheels instead.

A voice started. It came from very far away. He’d heard its low, rasping whisper in his ear.

_Don’t be afraid. Just let me be here. Right here._

_With you._

His bed trembled beneath him and he locked his knees. The words came in stuttered scraps and the missing parts were wide enough for him to fall into. A thumb wide, a door wide. He wished he could forget the lithe redhead from last year. 

He looked like an angel standing in the office. 

“Package for Mr Irving.”

John had signed for it and offered him coffee or a cup of hot tea, before he had to head back out into the cold. The man had taken it for something more.

“Sorry. I’m absolutely slammed.” With a cheerful gesture to his bulging carrier bag.

John would turn over the receipt later and find a phone number there. He kind of wishes he had thrown it out now.

He thinks that even now, alone in the dark, the redheaded bicycle courier has lodged something deep inside himself. A peninsula jutting into the sea. A dagger to the spleen. Other things where they really shouldn’t be. He rubs his palms against his eyes as images flow through him like meltwater through the opened veins of the ice. 

He’s on his knees and elbows again. He arches his back without prompting and wants to be exposed and taken apart by anything Neil (my actual name is so mortifying, so just Neil) wants to give him. 

Weird, terrifying sounds. Soft cries and the gasps he remembers that he made. He pushes the elastic of his pants down and wraps his fingers around his prick. It’s pathetically wet, and what the hell, masturbation is natural. 

It’s all terrible. It all can’t be reversed. He tries not to jerk himself off in time to the bedsprings next door, but all the other rhythms are kiltered and lame and they are all reflections of the pattern squeaked out by that terrible old mattress and what is almost certainly Neil. So he succumbs to the tyranny of his neighbour’s fucking and gets a damp squib orgasm.

“... such a good wife.”

John thrusts his hand under his pillow and half folds it over his face like one of his nanny's low-effort half-sandwiches. He just wants to fall asleep now, but his sixth sense (cultivated by twelve years of compulsory education) tells him the sun will be up anytime. And anyway, he doesn’t want to begin the next twenty hour cycle spattered in a reminder of Neil.


End file.
